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Theme: Midwinter in Lapland - Part 6

Day 4 - The evening when the sky exploded with Northern Lights

After a day out in the "wild" with freezing temperatures, it was nice to get the warmth and get some food at our "home for the week" the self catering house known as Keron near Abisko Fjeldstation. Our break did not last long, because the star filled evening sky exploded in green colours of northern lights and I had to run to find a great spot to photograph it. We were out the rest of the evening and after the Moon Rise, the light in the landscape changed and became almost unearthly.

Seeing the northern lights, or the aurora borealis, as they are also known, is a jaw-dropping and mystical moment. Abisko is internationally known as a good place to watch Northern lights, because of the "local weather", but no guarantee can be given, though. Some weeks, you are treated to fantastic displays, repeated several times during the evening. Other times, the snow falls densely, or the northern lights simply stay away. Naturally, the longer you stay and the more time you set aside, the better the odds. Each appearance of the northern lights is unique. Often you see three green bands across the night sky. Or the lights come as flickering curtains or rolling smoke. The colour is a luminous green, often with a hint of pink along the edge, and occasionally with a deep violet centre. The colour palette seems to come from the 1980s.

If there is a lot of activity up there, the northern lights explode for a minute or two in a corona. The next minute it is all over, and you ask yourself whether this was real or just an Arctic fatamorgana.